


This Is What I Am (This Is What I Was)

by crackinthecup



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Family Reunions, Gen, Halls of Mandos, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-14
Updated: 2020-04-14
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:34:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23652394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crackinthecup/pseuds/crackinthecup
Summary: Maeglin is ready to leave the Halls of Mandos and finds Aredhel waiting for him.
Comments: 10
Kudos: 62





	This Is What I Am (This Is What I Was)

Maeglin forgot many things during his time in the Halls of Mandos.

He had heeded the call of the Doomsman of the Valar, and afterwards there was only pain, pure and bright, blotting out all sense of his past and self. Where he had expected death to be dark and quiet and peaceful, he found anguish like a searing brand pressed to his very soul. In the absence of the body, there was nothing to modulate the hurts of the _fëa_ , the guilt and anger and grief and the million other emotions he had numbed himself from. They all came back to him in their full potency, sweeping him away in their torrent, and he thought he would remain lost forever.

Yet the Halls were a place of healing, not torment. It may have taken days or it may have taken years, but eventually he felt all there was for him to feel. Distress bled into acceptance. He came back to himself.

He started to remember the little things from his life on the Hither Shore. The steady beat of a hammer upon metal, the white-blue glimmer of a sword flashing like cruel dawn in the bowels of the mountains. The sunlight that sometimes flickered through the foliage of Nan Elmoth, warming his cheeks and lighting up his mother’s smile. Gondolin’s white-washed walls, the patter of bare feet, the tinkle of silver fountains.

Gradually he started to feel whole again, perhaps more so than he ever had before. The past did not trouble him anymore. He began to take interest in the Halls themselves, in all the lives unfolding around him. There were other _fëar_ here, some keeping their distance like he always did, others mingling among themselves and among the Maiar bound to the Halls. Sometimes there was another presence too, drawing his attention like a rock sinking through still waters. He guessed it must have been one of the Valar. The sensation was faintly similar to when he had been dragged before Morgoth’s throne so long ago, but where Morgoth exuded a dark malevolence that befouled the very air around him, this Vala radiated sadness so deep that it seemed to have no end. Some of the other _fëar_ flocked to it, but Maeglin chose not to. Long years with his father had taught him that there was no comfort to be found in voicing his sorrows. It did not feel right to break that habit now.

So it was that decades or perhaps centuries had passed when a Maia of the Halls approached him. It was clad in what appeared to be humanoid _fana_ , but its face was fully concealed beneath its cowl. It did not speak to him, but Maeglin knew what question it meant to ask as clearly as if it had: _are you ready to leave these Halls?_

He had not given much thought to leaving the Halls before. Existence here seemed removed from the outside world, gentle and infinite; the stars themselves could fall from the sky and the dwellers of these Halls would be none the wiser.

The Maia’s form seemed to flicker slightly, like a candle in the breeze. _You do not have to_ , it assured him, again without words; _the choice is yours_.

But with a certainty beyond words, Maeglin suddenly knew that he was ready. He no longer needed to make a home out of the Halls. He had just started wondering how to reply to the Maia when he felt it: his _fëa_ started to shift at a gesture from the Maia, stretching to fill out the contours of a body, bone and blood and sinew reforming as easily as molten silver poured into a mould. 

He opened his eyes and gazed upon his body of old, hale and unblemished. He blinked once, twice, experimentally taking a few steps forwards and finding the motion utterly alien. His chest started to burn, a slight discomfort at first but growing more insistent by the second, and he glanced up at the Maia in alarm.

 _Remember to breathe_ , it said, the words ringing through his mind with a strange echo. He inhaled deeply, steadily, perturbed at the feel of his ribcage moving with every breath. The Maia reached out and patted him on the shoulder, two quick, stiff taps using just the tips of its fingers. Its touch was cold, colder than any incarnate being could ever be, and Maeglin shivered.

The Maia handed him a set of garments, simple breeches and a tunic. It watched him impassively, neither helping nor hindering as he rather gracelessly put the clothes on. _It will all go back to normal_ , the Maia spoke into his mind. _We have never observed any long-term damage due to disembodiment_.

Maeglin nodded, finally standing fully clothed. His body still felt detached from him as a coat might from bare skin, but he recognised the Maia’s attempt at comfort and didn’t want to seem ungrateful.

The Maia turned away, asking him to follow, and he stumbled after it down corridors both new and familiar, ungainly as a newborn foal. The air was the first noticeable change amid the ceaseless grey of the Halls the further along they went. A slight breeze stirred his hair, a breath of fresh air from the outside world, and he stood up a little straighter, his skin seeming to fit a little more snugly over his bones. Soon enough he could discern a speck of light in the distance, and it grew and grew as they neared until they came before a sunlit archway beyond which the Halls abruptly ended in a short set of stairs.

 _Farewell_ , the Maia said; _may you find peace at the end of every journey_. With that the Maia left him, gliding back into the Halls to some new errand, and he remained standing there, blinking in the sun, wondering what to do with himself.

“Lómion?”

The name seemed familiar. He frowned, trying to place it, rifling through memory after memory for a hint of who it might have belonged to. His heart lurched in his chest when he finally settled on a memory, his mother murmuring the forbidden name to him beneath the dark boughs of Nan Elmoth. It was his name.

He tried to open his eyes against the glare of the sun, to see who had called him by his name, but he could only catch a hazy glimpse of a figure robed in white standing at the foot of the stairs. He had not expected someone to be waiting for him outside the Halls. He thought he would find himself in an unfamiliar city, alone amid its gleaming splendour, just like in Gondolin. Shielding his eyes from the sun, he tentatively stepped down the stairs, trying and failing to see the figure below more clearly.

“It’s all right,” the figure said, speaking to him in Quenya. He found that he still remembered the language as his mother had taught him in secret all those years ago, and in the wake of that realisation, recognition came to him. He knew that voice. It was a voice he had dreamed about, a voice he had loved. His mother’s voice.

If he had been able to, he would have run down the stairs. He had planned what to say to her, over and over, more often and more meticulously than any other interaction. But as he cleared the last step and found himself standing before Aredhel, words failed him.

Under the golden sunlight of Aman, he suddenly felt very small. There was not enough time in the world, not even till the breaking of Arda, that could have prepared him for this moment. He could not bear to meet Aredhel’s gaze for fear of what awful emotion he would find there; disgust, fury, hatred, disappointment, any of them would be justified.

“I’m sorry,” he said softly, the words slurring slightly as he tried to remember how to work the muscles of his mouth. Tears brimmed in his eyes and he let them fall. “I’m _so_ sorry, I –”

Aredhel threw her arms around him, pulling him into a fierce hug.

“I won’t tell you that what you did was right,” she told him, clutching him to her all the tighter. “But it is done. The lands that witnessed our sorrows are now lost beneath the sea. I love you, Lómion, I always have, and I would have us move past this.”

Once he might have kept to his silence and his thoughts, wondering why Aredhel would even consider forgiving him; nothing he had ever been, nothing he had ever done was worth the ruin of Gondolin. But that was a long time ago.

He nodded, returning Aredhel’s embrace. “How… how long have I been in there?”

“You know, I’m not entirely sure.”

She released him, taking a step back and swiping the back of her hand across her cheeks to wipe away the wetness there. The brightness of her smile as she looked at him sent his heart soaring. He returned her smile, albeit a little shakily, but did not say anything. He did not quite know who he was supposed to be around her.

If Aredhel noticed his discomfort, she did not mention it. She gave an easy shrug, continuing as though centuries and terrible deeds were infinitesimal in the sunlight of these lands. “It’s funny how hard it is to keep track of time here. There’s not much in the way of news from beyond the sea, and I don’t go looking for what little there is.” As she spoke, she cupped his face in her hands, wiping away his tears in a gesture that seemed as natural as though he were still a child. “I spend most of my time in the woods and they’re so uneventful that I haven’t thought of keeping a calendar. But I can tell you that the darkness was overthrown in a great battle that destroyed Valariandë, and the Second Age is now flourishing on what is left of the Hither Shore.”

Maeglin nodded slowly. A sudden melancholy weariness seemed to drag at his bones as he considered Aredhel’s words. But her bright mood was infectious, and it was with a light heart that he looked out across the valley stretching out before them to the city glinting golden on the horizon.

“And what of this place?” he asked quietly.

“Not much changes here,” Aredhel said, following his line of sight to Valmar some miles distant. “Unless you count the cry of the gulls, sometimes joyful, sometimes cold and mournful as it comes down the wind from the coast.” She shook her head, grinning up at Maeglin so disarmingly that he found himself grinning back despite how strange the motion felt. He couldn’t remember ever seeing his mother this happy and carefree. “I used to live by the sea once, long ago in Vinyamar. The gulls were an atrocious nuisance. Findekáno swore that he was harassed by one twice the size of his head for a piece of bread.”

Maeglin had heard the story before, but he laughed nonetheless, delighting in his mother’s company, in the simplicity of a tale without sorrow. He had spotted Fingon once, in the midst of battle, and had recognised him by the glint of gold in his hair. He thought of meeting him properly, and Argon too, with his short hair and roguish smile. He thought of Turgon, whom he had betrayed.

He turned away from Valmar in the distance and glanced backwards to the Halls of Mandos, standing dark and silent as a mausoleum. They were a place of quiet reflection, and he could not deny that the countless years he had spent there had done him much good; but reuniting with his kin, and blending into the wider community in these unfamiliar lands, was a challenge he was not sure he could tackle.

Aredhel looped her arm through his and began to steer him away from the shadow of the Halls. Her presence, warm and bright at his side, dispelled such dark thoughts. In placid silence he listened to her tales of leafy forests and jewelled streets and clear waters, and decided that the past did not have to shape the future.


End file.
